Nevertheless, you could clean things up by hitting the edit button on each of the extra posts. Then, by going to the menu choices, you can choose to delete the post.

I thought that you understood that, because recently one of your longer rants railing at me was removed. I was under the impression that you had second thoughts and deleted it, but maybe it was deleted by an iWindsurf monitor.

While I understand (but don't support) your fanaticism regarding Iso's disability payments, I wonder if you would be so courageous to bypass government payouts if you were to qualify for any of the things below (I probably missed a few).

Certainly, there are some that are able to abuse the system and receive assistance when they don't deserve/qualify for it, but I feel confident that Iso isn't one of them. I think the military does due diligence with these things.

I was on unemployment twice for a brief time. My employer paid into the system (probably at the expense of a lower salary for me), so when I qualified, I took the money. I didn't really need it, but it was an insurance policy for which I qualified to make a claim.

I think there would be very few of us that would not make a claim for which we legitimate qualify. As for Iso, find another issue to harp on.

Iso, of course, can't see my comments because he blocks my posts -- so he has absolutely no idea what I've said. But it's quite obvious that he speaks with a forked tongue out of both sides of his two faces. And I don't dislike his disability payments -- not really -- they're merely convenient evidence of his two-faced lying duplicity and egregious distortion of truth. I wouldn't care about Iso's disability payments if he weren't so strident in his objections to what others receive.

It's amusing that he dislikes Obama for the government handouts unless they're to him.

Regarding "government payouts"..........

I qualify for one now but have chosen to work instead. And I intentionally refrained from claiming unemployment insurance when I was eligible for it, because I didn't need it to survive.

So you had the opportunity to draw unemployment and didn't. Interesting, since (I think) this is a government mandated program for employers that takes money out of your pocket and gives it back if you get laid off. Exactly what liberals seem to fight for.

Need is one thing, but taking unemployment and saving it in order to better prepare for retirement seems like a reasonable option (less likelihood of government dependence). That was my thought.

"...I pay my meager disability payments myself out of my other pocket; my only benefit is the tax break on them. In no way do the payments constitute reasonable compensation for my disabilities' many impacts on my health and function."

I have to admit, I don't understand how that works. Of course, I never worked for the US Military, so what do I know. Nevertheless, under the Social Security system, if I was disabled, I would receive additional funds over and above my current award payments. It's quite clear that being disabled would warrant more support than I would otherwise receive. So, it only seems sensible to me that a career military person with a medical disability would be eligible to receive more compensation than a career military person without a disability. The idea that you have to fund your own medical disability payments makes absolutely no sense at all, so I can honestly say that I don't believe it.

This is kind of nuts. Iso has an entitlement attitude about all his (and other people's) military benefits, techno about unemployment. Iso thinks that a publicly held insurance policy is socialism--but that's what both unemployment insurance and medicare are. We are burying our heads in the sand if we think that we pay for all of the benefits that we may come to draw. No way. Both of these programs rely on others making it through unscathed. As does house insurance, and most forms of casualty insurance.

I can accept as a legitimate conservative viewpoint the idea that government is less efficient than private sector insurance. (Although I think if you have had any direct experience with getting private insurance paid you might think otherwise.) But to argue that such programs are not actuarial in nature, whether industry based or government based, is sheer madness.

I pay my meager disability payments myself out of my other pocket; my only benefit is the tax break on them. In no way do the payments constitute reasonable compensation for my disabilities' many impacts on my health and function."

I never worked for the US Military, so what do I know. ... The idea that you have to fund your own medical disability payments makes absolutely no sense at all, so I can honestly say that I don't believe it.

Your opening comment says it all, and I no longer give a damn whether you believe me; you blew that chance years ago. But for people with an open mind, I can't make it any clearer: Every cent of my VA disability check is subtracted, literally, penny by penny, from my USAF retirement check. You're damned right it makes no sense, which explains the decades of uproar and, so far, useless litigation from U.S. veterans and veterans' associations around the world and the hundreds or thousands of hours it's been debated in the House and the Senate for decades now.

That MAY have changed very recently for combat vets retiring with 20 or more years of service, and as a 20-yr-retiree's disability rating nears 50% (i.e., he can do only limited work due to disabilities medically connected to his active duty) and moves towards 100% (i.e., he cannot work due to disabilities medically connected to his active duty), ever less of the disability pay is subtracted from his pension. The definitions, constraints, exclusions, percentages, medical criteria, hoops, proof, double checks, means tests, subsequent reviews to weed out vets whose disabilities improve with time, etc. that define this whole process probably run into hundreds, likely thousands, of pages. Anyone caught abusing the system is way up $#!+ Creek and can easily lose ALL benefits. I've seen full colonels lose everything over less.

My blood boils every time I see one of these Wounded Warrior appeals on TV and realize there are pieces of dog squeeze in the free world who think these men and women deserve less, not more. Just because a person can walk or even run does not mean her life is anywhere near normal. Not one person here would sell their health for the amount of money the VA pays for its loss, even if it did NOT come out of their other pocket.

How many times do I have to say it: I can back up every fact and opinion I post with something between logical construct, professional opinion, expert consensus, and irrefutable proof. I no longer read the contradictions posted by the people in my killfile because 99.9% of them take what I DIDN'T say and try to prove THAT wrong or cite the Daily Kos as proof, both of which fool only the less careful readers. Once again, we could avoid a lot of angst and ignorance if more people did what I and the better TR hosts advise: pay enough attention to what the middle third of the people say to at least investigate it with an open mind. The far left media (i.e.,anything left of Fox) are lying to you, and the far right anything is, IMO, a bunch of bible-thumping loons.

Like many sensible folks out there, I feel that receiving a second or third opinion on something makes sense, especially given isobars' reputation here for spreading disinformation. I think even he can understand the merit in such an approach to information gathering and learning, but I could be wrong in that assumption.

So you had the opportunity to draw unemployment and didn't. Interesting, since (I think) this is a government mandated program for employers that takes money out of your pocket and gives it back if you get laid off. Exactly what liberals seem to fight for.

Yes and yes. Employees pay into UI and employers pay even more.

I worked during the school year with the summers off -- but the pay goes a full 12 months. However, the contract goes (intentionally) from September to May.... so, technically, I could collect for the summer. But since I still received a paycheck with benefits, I never bothered to collect. I figured that others needed it more than me.

And yes, liberals fight for this type of program, just as Iso fights for his right to his disability..... and he's hardly a liberal. He can't even say the word without choking.

techno900 wrote:

Need is one thing, but taking unemployment and saving it in order to better prepare for retirement seems like a reasonable option (less likelihood of government dependence). That was my thought.

By "government dependance," I assume you mean SS. Don't forget that we pay into that, too. So it's my money or your money.

But I'm confused by your logic --- you think I should take government money now so I don't have to take it later? I don't see the difference.

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